


beckoning towards me from behind that closed door

by averita



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 20:22:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7521859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/averita/pseuds/averita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten things that never happened to Kara Zor-El.</p>
            </blockquote>





	beckoning towards me from behind that closed door

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Hymn to Her" by The Pretenders.

Kara considers the spy beacon, smoothing her thumb over the familiar edges of it. 

_I know you miss your aunt_ , her mother had said earlier. _I’m sure she misses you too. You know how much she loves you, Kara._ She’d sounded so sad that Kara had been tempted to signal Astra then and there just to put a smile on her mother’s face - she can’t remember the last time she saw her truly smile. Before Astra had vanished, she thinks. Before whatever is happening now.

And something is happening, Kara is sure of it. Her mother is gone more often than not; her father tries to make up for it with jokes and laughter that never quite reaches his eyes. They whisper with her aunt and uncle and the other adults - Kara has lost track of the conversations that have come to an abrupt halt the moment her presence registers. 

Astra would tell her, if she asked. Astra wouldn’t lie to her. But Astra has been gone for months now, and Kara doesn’t know what’s happening but she knows that Astra would never leave her unless she had a very, very good reason. 

With a heavy sigh, she returns the beacon to its hiding place, and resigns to wait for her aunt to return. 

When she does, mere weeks later, she takes Kara’s face in her hands and holds her close. “I’ve missed you, little one,” she whispers, voice thick with the same heartbreak that had colored Alura’s words, and Kara smiles beatifically.

“I’m right here, Aunt Astra,” she says. “We’re together now. Myriad brings us all together.”

***

It’s hard when Clark goes back to work full-time - she’s too old for a babysitter but can’t be left alone for long, either. Jimmy Olsen is the compromise and neither of them is happy about it.

“I should be up there with him,” Kara complains as her cousin balances a car in one hand and reaches inside the passenger window with another. “I can do everything he can.”

“Maybe one day you will,” Jimmy sighs, zooming in closer with his camera and glancing down at her. “But Kara, you’re still learning how to -”

“ - _control my powers_ , yeah, I know,” she mutters. He talks to her sometimes like he’s so much older than her, like he’s not only been able to legally drink for a few months. Like she hadn’t held the Man of Steel when he was a baby and vowed to protect him. 

Clark vacillates wildly between reluctant parent and protective brother, distant one moment and overbearing the next, lost and longing for something that she doesn’t know but clearly isn’t giving him. Some days, it just hurts. Other days - days like today - it _burns_. 

She speaks languages that Jimmy Olsen doesn’t know exists. Kal-El wears their House crest, but she is the one who taught him what it means. 

“I’m back at school next week,” Kara says resentfully, carefully pushing her way through the throng of people with Jimmy close behind. “I’ll go back to geometry and essays and you can go be his sidekick again.” 

“I’m not his sidekick,” Jimmy shoots back. “I’m his colleague. And his _friend_.” He sounds so proud that Kara wants to kick something, but there’s a chance it would end up on the other side of Metropolis so she curbs the urge. _Look at me_ , she thinks bitterly. Controlling my powers. 

Clark sighs that familiar helpless sigh when she hides out in her room that night. She knows, distantly, that he didn’t ask for this any more than she did. She knows he’s trying, in his way, same as Jimmy and Lois and all of the others who don’t know what to do with her. And she tries, too. She really tries to believe that blood is enough to bind them. She tries the believe that one day, his home will feel like hers, too.

***

_Supergirl_. It’s not that Kara hadn’t thought about a name or even considered some variation of her cousin’s, but _Supergirl_ \- she doesn’t even have a suit yet, and Cat Grant is branding her like a Barbie doll for all of National City to see and then threatening James Olsen to boot.

Kara tells herself that that’s why she agrees to the interview: to protect her new friend. Flying Ms. Grant’s car to a remote cliff overlooking the city - well. Every good superhero has a healthy flair for drama. 

“It’s you,” Ms. Grant - _Cat_ \- says flatly, looking disappointingly unruffled and jutting out a hip like she’s already bored. Kara flashes back to her last interview with Cat Grant, if it could even be called that: the nervous flush of her cheeks as she stepped into the glass castle, and the thick, muddy lump building in her throat as every barbed word of Cat’s rant landed and drew blood. 

She hadn’t been ready then. She is now.

She hopes.

“You wanted to see me,” Kara says, floating higher and squaring her shoulders. She speaks differently as Supergirl, she finds - voice pitched lower and more confident, and she thinks that even Cat Grant won’t be able to tell how her stomach clenches with nerves. “Here I am.”

“Here you are,” Cat drawls. “Just like that. Well, Supergirl -”

Kara flinches; even in the dark Cat notices, and raises an eyebrow. “You don’t like the name? That’s too bad. The trademark is already pending.”

“I’m not yours to trademark,” Kara says forcefully, sucking in a deep breath as she realizes how quickly her heart is racing - Cat might not have super senses, but Kara is grateful for the height and distance between them anyway. The older woman remains calm, tongue flicking out to wet her lips as she regards Kara, but something sparks in her eyes as Kara circles around so that Cat has to turn to face her. 

“Perhaps you can tell me your real name, then,” she finally prods. Kara rolls her eyes and Cat sighs with exasperation, shrugging one delicate shoulder. “Well, _Supergirl_ , let me give you some advice.” She pauses, the silence sharp in the air, and then her voice takes on a steely edge. “I built myself from the ground up. I made my name mean something. It’s not easy to create yourself, Supergirl, but you can do it. You can write your own story.” She shrugs again, her gaze piercing and intent. “But it’s no good if no one is listening.”

Without blinking Cat reaches into her coat, pulls out her phone, and hits “record”. She wets her lips again as she holds it high in the air between them. 

Kara can’t tell if it’s an olive branch, or if it's a sword meant to cut her down.

***

She begged for weeks to see the dancers. They were only to be in Argo City for a fortnight, but it was easy enough for her parents to procure seats for one of the final performances. “She’s so young,” her reluctant mother protested but her father pouted, winking at Kara, and Alura relented.

“You will have such fun, little one!” Aunt Astra promised as Kara showed off her new dress, twirling her around the room in delight. She didn’t sleep a wink all night, excitement itching under her skin. 

She fell asleep halfway through the first act, and in the years to come, she remembers that night in a long, languid series of scenes. The red glint of the setting sun over the glassy theater spires; soft crushed velvet beneath her fingers, spindly legs dangling over the seat and not touching the floor; glasses clinking, the heavy spice of her mother’s perfume and the warmth of her arm against Kara’s cheek. Music built and crested, filled her like a fountain, and when her head fell too far forward she would jerk awake and take in the sheets of white fabric that fell over and around the long dark bodies of the dancers sweeping across the stage before following her back into her dreamworld. 

It’s a little like that here. She doesn’t know how long ago that night was, or how many times she has recalled it since she got here. Sometimes she wonders if she’s slept at all - there’s no way to tell - but it feels like a long time between her thoughts and she supposes she must have succumbed. Sometimes she sees in color, and she knows that can’t be real. Now and then she’ll notice that her eyes have opened, but it’s so dark and cold, her lids so heavy, that closing them is the easiest thing in the world.

Somewhere very far away, a baby lands on a planet called Earth. He lives and dies, like stars, like planets, like the universe around Kara. And still, she drifts and dreams.

***

Kara’s phone vibrates on the table, inching closer to the edge. _Work emergency_ , the text reads. _So much for Geneva. Gonna see if I can fly out tomorrow instead._

 _Sorry_ , Kara texts back, still waiting for her date. _Did something blow up?_

_Not quite_ , Alex replies, _but a fire extinguisher or three were involved_. Kara smiles to herself and pockets her phone, half-rising as she recognizes the man whose picture she had seen online. 

The date is a bust, and it fills her with a bitter resignation that she is becoming far too used to. She digs her phone back out, thinking that maybe she can go to Alex’s place for a real dinner and ice cream and salvage at least some portion of the night. 

She’s already waiting for her sister to pick up when she sees the news alert. _Plane to Geneva experiences engine failure._ “Kara?” Alex answers as she processes what she’s seeing.

“Oh my God - Alex, that was your plane,” Kara gasps, glancing around frantically and rushing for the exit. “Are you seeing this? Alex, you were supposed to be on that plane!” 

“I know,” Alex says tightly, “I know - Kara, I need you to go home. I’ll meet you at your apartment, okay?” 

Kara looks up, sees the trail of orange and smoke, and everything inside her clenches. “Alex, I have to do something,” she whispers. “All those people - I can’t just watch this, I can _do_ something!”

“You can’t,” Alex insists. “Kara. You can’t. Please come home, please, I’ll meet you there, I’m already on my way. Kara. _Kara_!”

Alex keeps talking, the words jumbling together but the clear desperation registering somewhere in Kara’s mind and keeping her rooted to the spot. “Trust me,” she hears somewhere in Alex’s frantic pleading. Trust Alex. She does, more than anyone, but -

A spectacular fireball lights up the night sky. Kara closes her eyes, blocking out everything but her sister’s voice.

***

“Oh, thank God,” Martha says as soon as she sees her, “I could barely keep him on the ground, he wanted to go look for you!”

“ _Ouch_ , Cal!” Kara huffs as her cousin runs straight into her for some strange approximation of a hug. She’s felt more pain since becoming Lady El two years ago than she had in the seven prior, but it’s still not common, and Cal is one of the few people on Earth who can even make her flinch. “Easy, bud.” She ruffles his hair, grinning down at him as he makes a face.

“You’re late,” he informs her, and Kara grimaces apologetically. 

“I’m sorry,” she tells him, looking over his head to include their foster mother in her apology. “I got a little held up back in National City.”

Martha’s lips twitch. “We saw,” she says, gesturing towards the living room, where Kara can hear the TV playing. “Tell me, honey, how’s college going? Are you keeping up with your classes?”

Kara grins sheepishly, nudging Cal away from her and wrapping Martha in a gentle hug. “Things are good,” she says, deliberately vague, and Martha scoffs but pats her cheek affectionately. 

It’s been awhile since she’s been able to visit - between her classes, superhero duties, and the increasing difficulty of keeping the two parts of her life separate she’s been overwhelmed and overworked. With a pang she can see that Cal has shot up another inch or two since she last saw him; he’s nearly ten now, and she can only imagine that he’s eating Martha and Jonathan right out of the house. They used to joke how lucky it was that Kara had chosen a farm to crash into, because no grocery store alone would have been able to keep sustain her. 

They were right, of course - her pod couldn’t have landed in a better place, for so many reasons. The farm isn’t home for her quite the way that it is for Cal, who has known nothing else, but it’s the closest thing she’ll ever know on this planet and it’s more than she’d ever imagined when her parents had sent her away to survive and leave her world to die behind her.

The pink-cheeked, dark-haired boy poking her side is all that’s left of that world, and oh, she’s _missed_ him - he squirms when she pulls him close for another hug, but indulges her. 

“Go on, then,” Martha sighs before Cal can say a word, “up, up, and away with you two. Lunch will still be here when you get back.”

***

Where Kara grew up, names were important. Names told stories. Names connected them with each other, with their history.

No one has a name here.

There are Guards, and Orderlies - Kara doesn’t really distinguish them anymore - and sometimes there are Teachers, but not as often as there used to be. There are Nurses and Soldiers and Agents. 

There is the General, and the Director, and the Doctor, and they are her entire world, but none of them has a name. 

Even Kara doesn’t have a name here, except for in her own head, and even then she sometimes forgets. She is just the Kryptonian. ( _Krypton_ , yes, that’s another name in her head. _Kara. Krypton. Kal-El. Zor-El. Alura._ She thinks these names must be etched into the bone of her skull by now - they run through her head like a train on tracks, in a steady circle around and around and around like they’re trying to escape.) 

The names used to hurt but they don’t anymore, not often. In any case, Kara is used to hurt. 

Pain is just a side effect, the Doctor assured her early on, not their goal. They would do everything they could to keep her suffering to a minimum. They would only starve her long enough to gather their data, and then they'd give her whatever she wanted to eat. They'd subject her to painful stimuli to see how she'd react, but they'd also test her pleasure sensors. They'd remove only what they had to, and do everything they could to make sure everything grew back.

She killed two people back at the beginning, back when she still fought. She doesn't think she meant to but even if she didn't, it still makes her dangerous. They keep her safe here, the General says. They keep her safe from everyone else, and they keep everyone else safe from her. 

She was supposed to be safe, Alura said. She was supposed to be safe on Earth. 

But this isn’t Earth. This is Cadmus.

***

“Let me go,” Kara pleads, yanking uselessly at the cuff locking her to the wall. “Alex, let me go.”

“I can’t,” her sister whispers, sounding as wrecked as Kara has ever heard her. Her face is screwed up like she’s trying not to cry and Kara can’t tell if it’s the effects of Myriad or emotion - likely a combination, but while it hurts deep inside the way it always does when Alex is in pain, she can’t focus on anything but the Kryptonite cuffs holding her in place, and the fact that Alex won’t _let her go_. 

“Don’t blame your sister, little one.” Astra’s voice fills the DEO, and Kara sobs helplessly. “It was my idea. And this is my responsibility, Kara, you know it is.”

Kara violently shakes her head, knowing Astra can’t see her. Alex can, of course - she’s crying too, swiping at her cheeks, and reaching for Kara but stopping short of touching her. “No,” Kara spits out, “no, there has to be another way.”

“There isn’t. I know that better than anyone.” Astra’s voice shakes a little. A burst of static sounds - Kara cries out and Alex flinches, but then the line clears and Astra is still there. “This world needs you. If anyone can save them, it’s you. They are so lucky to have you, little one.” A pause, and then: “ _I_ was lucky.” 

The static sounds again, and this time it doesn’t go away. 

“I’m sorry,” she vaguely hears Alex pleading beside her, “Kara, I’m so sorry.” Pain blooms in front of her like something alive, and maybe it’s Myriad, maybe she’s weak enough now that it can affect her, maybe she’ll die with the rest of them, and _oh_ , she can only hope. She clings to her sister as it builds. As long as it’s there, Astra is still alive, and she won’t have to forgive Alex for tricking her, or forgive Astra for convincing her to, or -

And then the pain in her head is gone. Kara knows, deep in her bones, that the pain that she’s left with will never go away. 

She closes her eyes to it: the sudden explosion of cheers, the raw skin of her wrists where the cuffs still hold her, the shaky sigh Alex lets out and the sharp, sudden breath she sucks in -

“Your pod,” Alex gasps, her fingernails biting Kara’s palm. “Kara, your _pod_ -”

***

She stays with Kal-El and Lois for a little while, but Metropolis is never really an option. She can barely look at her cousin when he’s Clark Kent, much less when he removes his glasses and dons the suit. In the end she chooses the outskirts of Seattle, where clouds cover the sun more often than not.

“If I had landed on time, this wouldn’t have happened,” she tells Cat not long after she’s settled in her new apartment. It’s late, close to midnight; she thinks she hears the clink of a glass on the other end of the line. “If I had raised him, if he wasn’t so human, Myriad wouldn’t have affected him. He could have stopped this.”

“Maybe,” Cat says. “Or maybe a thirteen year old raising an infant with superpowers would have ended very badly in other ways.” 

Kara closes her eyes. “Are you still at work?”

Cat sighs heavily into the phone. “No,” she says. “I just left.” She’s always been a workaholic but it’s different now. The CatCo building was destroyed in the blast, and between those who died and those who fled National City in the aftermath, there aren’t many people left to keep CatCo alive at all. _The fall of an empire_ , Kara thinks, but Cat fights on, like she can hold it together with grit alone. Kara still isn’t sure if it’s masochism - some form of penance for them not being able to stop Max, for hoping when hope proved to be as useless as heroes - or if she’s just lost too much already. 

They’d tried, at first, to convince each other that they weren’t to blame, but Kara is a terrible liar and Cat has little patience for platitudes. 

“You sound tired,” Kara says, fiddling with the blanket on her lap. It’s cold in her drafty apartment but mostly she just likes the weight of it. “You should get some rest.”

Cat laughs a little. It's the saddest sound she's has ever heard. “Oh, Kara,” she sighs, and then all Kara hears is breathing. 

If Cat staying in National City like some kind of gravekeeper is her penance, this is Kara's: gray skies, lonely streets, and Cat’s weary voice in her ear every night, saying her name correctly only now that it's too late.

***

Eliza finds her in an empty break room. “There you are,” she says, sounding relieved and wincing as she settles into the chair beside Kara. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“I just needed a minute,” Kara mumbles. She’s still in her Supergirl suit, but Eliza’s hand is warm on her arm even through the fabric. She lets out a long, shuddering sigh before scooting closer to rest her head against Eliza’s shoulder.

Steady, sure fingers comb through her hair, and it’s that more than anything that helps her mind finally slow and settle. The world has been moving twice as fast since she found Lara in the pod: all questions and no answers, emotions coming and going too quickly to process. But it’s been nearly sixteen hours now, and once again they are all finding their places in a new world. 

Alex remains with her aunt, monitoring her recovery, while J’onn oversees the retrieval of the pod; James has only left Clark’s side long enough to lead Lois to him when she arrived with Lucy. Winn finally left for CatCo at Kara’s pleading - the events of Myriad, a spaceship falling from the sky, and Cat’s three absent employees has left Kara’s phone burning, but she can’t quite bring herself to answer it. 

“I just keep thinking,” she finally whispers, “what would have happened if she had landed first. Kal-El would have had his mother, but I wouldn’t -” she cuts herself off, swallowing. “And Astra. I’ve already gotten one aunt back, but sometimes I think it would have been better if I hadn’t.”

Eliza hums. “I don’t know,” she muses, pressing a brief kiss to Kara’s forehead. “You know, I keep thinking about Jeremiah. The things he missed - Alex’s graduations, our trip to Mexico, the day you started college - he doesn’t know about any of that. He didn’t get to see you become Supergirl.” She swallows too; Kara feels the movement of her throat. “But sweetheart, when he comes home, he’s going to have his family waiting for him. An even bigger family than he left. And I don’t know, honey, I don’t know what our lives would look like if things had been different, but I wouldn’t want Jeremiah to come back to any other family but this one.” 

Kara nods shakily, tears pooling in her eyes. “I wouldn’t want it to be different either,” she murmurs. “It just feels like every time I start to catch my breath…” She lets the sentence linger unfinished in the air, but Eliza doesn’t push. 

Gratitude wells inside her, sudden and so overwhelming that she shudders with it. Eliza keeps one arm around Kara as she sits up, her other hand finding one of Kara’s and squeezing. “Thank you,” Kara manages. “Thank you for being here. The way things happened - the only reason I’m okay is because of you and Alex. I don’t know who I’d be otherwise.”

Eliza smiles a watery smile, her eyes bright as she smoothes her thumb across the back of Kara’s hand. “Oh, sweetheart,” she murmurs, “you won’t ever have to find out.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr at until-the-next-time.tumblr.com.


End file.
